Category: Reviews

Mike Gold: A Simple Twist Of Fate

Doctor Fate 1

For the past several weeks my friend and comrade Paul Levitz has taken to the so-called social media to promote his brand-new comic book, Doctor Fate.

Of course, this is his right and more power to him. But I don’t recall Paul doing so much promotion for his work during a writing career that goes back to when he was a small child. Now that he’s well into being a small adult, I’m taking this effort as a sign of his pride and enthusiasm for his latest project. I would have read this book anyway as the lead character has long been a favorite, but I really wanted to see why he’s so enthusiastic this time around and so the book took the top position on my week’s reading pile.

Doctor Fate 2Doctor Fate #1 is capped by an interesting and unusual mosaic-pattern cover, drawn by interior artist Sonny Liew in DC’s newer, looser style. If the idea of the cover being drawn by the interior artist confuses you, there’s a variant cover available if you can wrestle it from your retailer. I stared at it for a while, found the hidden bunny rabbit head, and moved inside.

The story is a continuation from the Sneak Peak giveaway made available last month, although if you haven’t read that and you’re not interested in reading it on DC’s website, that’s cool. The story makes perfect sense without it. It is properly apocalyptic, with Anubis, the jackal-headed Egyptian Lord of Dead with the Greek name, preparing his own personal sequel to the big wet Noah Event. Only one young Brooklynite of Egyptian heritage can save the day – or so we presume; it’s a continued story and not a mini-series – and he wants no part of it. He’s about to start pre-med classes and he’s got a girl friend or something. But… dare I say it… Fate has other plans.

I’ll admit I was disappointed that they fussed with the traditional Doctor Fate costume. This did not come as a surprise as I actually pay some attention to the New New Fifty-Two as I eagerly await the inevitable Newer Still New New Fifty-Two reboot. But, who knows, maybe I’ll get lucky and we’ll see some sort of return of what I find to be one of the most interesting and distinctive superhero costumes of the past 75 years. Right now, we get the helmet – to be sure – and the amulet, which seems to have been stolen straight out of Tony Stark’s chest. Not to worry; Tony’s got plenty more.

Paul is one of those writers who carefully plots out the inter-relationship of each story element. This is what made him a superlative Legion of Super-Heroes scribe, a trait he shared with his predecessor, Jim Shooter. It’s clear that he put a lot of effort into this story: damn near every I is dotted, every T is crossed, and the tale is properly nuanced – not an easy trick in a story that, otherwise, could suffer from originitis. To me, it seems Paul is playing to the strengths of his collaborator, the aforementioned Sonny Liew.

Liew has a fluidity of style that makes the story move at a brisk pace. A veteran of Vertigo and Marvel and sundry indy projects, I am told the two met at a toy fair in Singapore. Sonny went to school there. He also went to school in Cambridge, England and Providence, Rhode Island. He’s quite the bon vivant. He’s also one of the best storytellers I’ve seen in a decade.

Doctor Fate #1 places the oft-revived hero on the top shelf of current mainstream superhero comics, right where, my inner fanboy screams, he belongs. I hope DC waits a long, long while before the next reboot.

 

Comics Reviews (June 17th, 2015)

Old Man Logan #2

Well this went off the rails fast. After a first issue long on potential, this is a chain of scenes, all of them interrupted before anything interesting is allowed to happen so that Logan can be dragged to some new potentially interesting scene that won’t play out. Sorrentino’s art is very pretty, but it’s unclear as all hell, and Bendis is in his “let the artist do most of the storytelling” mode, a mode he puzzlingly only ever takes when working with abstract and hard to follow artists, as opposed to when he’s working with Bagley or someone who draws pages so that you can tell what’s going on.

Blackcross #4

A rarity: a Warren Ellis book I’m just not digging at all. None of the characters stand out to me, I don’t know the superheroes being referenced, and this is mostly vague implications in search of a plot for me. Not only do I not remember what’s going on month to month, in the three hours between reading it and writing this review I’ve already forgotten most of this book.

Doctor Who: The Eleventh Doctor #13

The plot advances, and there are some very good Eleventh Doctor monologues, but this is a resolutely average issue of this comic. Still, we’re into the “I actually enjoyed reading this” segment of the list.

Stumptown #6

The start of a new arc. I’m not entirely sold – the start was awkward as we have to sit through an explanation of civet coffee, which is on the one hand something that probably does need exposition and on the other feels a bit cliche and overdone. Still, Stumptown is a PI book, not a mystery book, so the setup isn’t the interesting part, and this has enough funny bits to be an entertaining way to spend five minutes, albeit a bit steep at $3.99. But what comics aren’t these days.

Thors #1

A Thor cop book. Aaron proves good at writing this, which is nice – he’s hit and miss for me, to say the least. But the procedural suits him, apparently, and the sheer absurdity of it wrings out a smile at least one every few pages. Throg, in particular, is a delight to see. And with the last page, it even gives a sense that this will matter when we get back to the main Thor book. The only pity is having to go back to that book eventually, really.

Ms. Marvel #16

Wilson makes the smart decision to keep this focused on Kamala and on her plots, picking up heavily from the last arc. The final page is promising. It is in places predictable, but this book always has been – its charm is its ability to find new spins and perspectives on things. Such as a school/refugee center defended by weird turquoise monster things created by Loki. (“To be pwned by Loki is a great honor,” one says, in the week’s best line.) As I said, I have low hopes for these Last Days books, but this is quite good.

Lazarus #17

Rucka returns to his strengths in many ways here: political intrigue, well-done female characters, and a general sense of things kicking off. Not a jumping on point, I suspect, only because there’s a lot of worldbuilding already done and this doesn’t necessarily sell its own stakes well. But it’s exactly what one wants out of a creator-owned Rucka book.

Trees #10

The indiscipline of this book remains considerable. In one plot, it’s utterly unclear what the main character is doing. In the other, nothing seems to happen. The cliffhanger is not one. But at this point these are all clear stylistic choices, and despite long since having lost the plot on this series this issue picked up and read well. Love the bits about the NYPD in the first half. This remains one of the most daring books on the market, and I’m glad that Ellis is content to use the magnitude and guaranteed sales of his name to recklessly fuck with people.

Originally published on PhilipSandifer.com.

Box Office Democracy: Jurassic World

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If I had been given a vote I would not have supported making another Jurassic Park movie. It’s a franchise that I’m not sure even qualified as a franchise until this weekend. The original film is a masterpiece, one of the greatest experiences I’ve ever had in a theater, a movie that defined cinema for an entire generation. The sequels, by contrast, feel like hastily assembled Frankenstein monsters cobbled together from good parts of the first film and whatever script fragments were in the Amblin Entertainment dumpster. All sort of movies in the 90s got two sequels that would never demand this kind of attention but Jurassic Park is special and Jurassic World is a movie that deserves to be a part of something special.

The thing that makes Jurassic World special, aside from the innate sense of wonder that comes from seeing exceptionally rendered dinosaur special effects, is the performance of Chris Pratt. Even though I strongly think that getting so much of handsome action star Chris Pratt is robbing us of the fine work we could be getting from gifted comic actor Chris Pratt it’s hard to deny how effective he is. The movie misses him dearly when he’s not on screen while it bounces between being a little boring and interesting but because someone is in imminent danger of being eaten. The character they gave Pratt, a velociraptor trainer who operates like a circus lion tamer, could easily have been a disaster on par with Indiana Jones in that refrigerator but he somehow makes it believable. Pratt is so good he draws attention away from the rest of the cast being sort of bland and forgettable. No one will ever be quite as good as Jeff Goldblum as Ian Malcolm but it’s fantastic to see someone trying for it.

The original Jurassic Park films were very much defined by the dinosaurs that hunted the protagonists, from the velociraptors and the tyrannosaurus in the first film to the sequels shamelessly reusing all of the same things while adding useless bits of garbage dinosaurs. For Jurassic World the antagonist dinosaur, the Indominus Rex, is the kind of monster a clever eight year-old would come up with trying to one up a playmate while playing pretend. The movie even calls this out when the park’s operation’s manager (Bryce Dallas Howard) says patrons need dinosaurs that are bigger and have more teeth. She’s talking about us, the moviegoers who probably would not have been satisfied with just another chase scene with a tyrannosaurus, we need something with more teeth, with natural camouflage, that hunts for sport. It’s an interesting commentary on modern audiences for sure but it also leads to some rather mystifying moments when very late in to the movie the Indominus is still coming up with new powers tailor made to escape the predicament it’s in.

The film probably leans a little too heavily on nostalgia. The theme from the original John Williams score is used three times in the first twenty minutes and then often throughout including a piano version used to convey sadness. It’s all a little much. They also lean heavily on recycled imagery using similar shots of stampeding dinos or the unnecessary trip through the original visitors center, which has apparently not been touched in all this time. I understand the impulse to lean on this, to wink at the audience, but it isn’t necessary the new stuff in this movie is good enough to stand on its own and it isn’t helping to constantly raise the specter of such a powerful film.

Nothing will ever be like watching Jurassic Park in the movie theater when I was nine years old. That is an unfair standard to hold Jurassic World to even though I would very much like to. Jurassic World gave me everything I wanted, it was suspenseful, it was funny, it looked amazing, the action was thrilling, it was a completely enjoyable utterly riveting piece of filmmaking. I’m looking forward to seeing the next movie in the series, the sequel very obviously set up all throughout this one, and that is an optimism I haven’t felt about a Jurassic Park sequel in 18 years.

Ah, to feel young again.

REVIEW: The Newsroom The Complete Third Season

the-newsroom-season-3Aaron Sorkin is an exceptionally talent writer who brings a playwright’s sensibilities to television which means his characters talk. A lot. But unlike so many prime time series, his characters actually have something to say. It’s a shame more people don’t want to hear whatever it is being discussed because Sorkin series tend not to last very long.

There were two seasons of Sports Night, four Sorkin-produced episodes of The West Wing and a single uneven season of Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip. For his self-proclaimed final act in television, Sorkin gave us three ever-shortened seasons of The Newsroom. This last ran on HBO and other than using a handful of words, could have easily aired on the major networks. After all, Sorkin didn’t pander with nudity or excessive violence.

The series’ conceit was that we were watching the fall and rise of network anchor Will McAvoy (Jeff Daniels), the face and voice of Atlantic Cable Network, all all-news cable channel. As we watch him and the production staff find their mojo, Sorkin chose to set the show in the recent past and see how these high-minded journalists would have covered current events. The first season was the run-up to the 2012 election while season two covered election night and how a story blew up in their faces.

da167b80-2d66-0132-4006-0ebc4eccb42fSeason three, a mere six episodes in length, comes out in a two-disc DVD set on Tuesday from HBO Home Entertainment. The focus this time falls on the Boston Marathon bombing along with the network’s sale and struggles to maintain its integrity while boosting ratings for revenue. With just six hours to play with, Sorkin never let up and moved things along at a fast clip, minimizing the number of sub-plots which meant the supporting cast had less to do. In the penultimate episode, though, there is a strong sub-plot about a college rape story that caused some criticism from the pundits but the series gets credit for even exploring the subject, when few other shows have touched on it.

Daniels, Emily Mortimer, and Sam Waterston get to carry the load this time around and do so with energy and pathos. Everyone else, from Olivia Munn to Alison Pill, have their moment or two and it’s nice to see them in action. If anyone is given less to do it’s Dev Patel, whose Neal has to disappear to avoid testifying where he got leaked information that points to the Eric Snowden case.

newsroom-final-seasonEven though it’s set in the past, it’s the very recent past so the issues of the day remain largely the same and there’s a wonderful thread about the impact social networking has had on news coverage, especially without proper vetting of sources and details. Sorkin, at his weakest, still tackles topics few other series go near and gets people on the show and then in the audience discussing the issue. He is clearly liberal in his biases but allows his characters to explore all sides of an issue. Too few prime time shows on any distribution channel truly take on the topics of the day and give their characters strong opinions in favor or escapism or “ripped from the headlines” gloss. As a result, as The Newsroom fades from memory so does the impetus for further intelligent debate thanks to characters we’re invested in.

Sorkin has come to end his series with an episode entitled “What Kind of Day has it Been” and here he brings things full circle as the death of beloved producer Charlie Skinner has everyone reflecting at the events that brought everyone together in the very first episode, when McAvoy was at his lowest ebb and needed help. While McAvoy and crew have come a long way, the series rarely let its viewers down and remained a sharp commentary on politics, media ethics, and human relationships.

The standard definition transfers are fine and makes for good watching. The sextet of episodes is accompanied by the Sorkin commentary that aired after each show. Additionally, there’s some interesting commentary from Sorkin and executive producer Alan Poul for the finale.

HBO gets kudos for airing the series at all and rewatching this reminds me how much Sorkin’s weekly presence will be missed.

Review: Pride and Prejudice, the Graphic Novel

pride-prejudice-7106543Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice by Ian Edginton and Robert Deas. Self Made Hero, 144 pages. $19.95 retail hardcopy; also available in electronic editions.

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that I’m a huge Jane Austen fangirl. I make no apologies. I made my husband take me to the Jane Austen museum in Bath for my 40th birthday. I own every version of every Jane Austen movie made – retellings too. As a matter of facet, I collect adaptations in every form from the sublime (The Lizzie Bennet Diaries, Bridget Jones, Clueless) to the abusively bad (Rude Awakenings of a Jane Austen Addict is currently in my car’s CD player right now, but I’m powering through because I am not a quitter.) I’ve read Pride and Prejudice annually since I was 19 – and it’s not even my favorite Austen novel (that would be Persuasion, which I also read once a year as well as listen to the ITV Classics podcast version before bed more than that).

Yeah, I’m kind of obsessed with wit and social politics in my period-costumed love stories. Though for some reason, I never thought of reading a comic version of one of Austen’s books. I guess I never imagined a need for one.

Don’t get me wrong. It’s not as if I think Regency-period chick lit is too good for the graphic novel form. I’m a fan of the No Fear Shakespeare series, and don’t tell any of my professors, but I much preferred Marvel’s The Iliad and The Odyssey to studying the actual Homer texts. But while Jane Austen obviously proves to be ripe for pop culture appropriation, I just never figured her characters transferring well into panels. But Self Made Hero made graphic novel version of Pride and Prejudice, so I had to try.

The graphic novel version certainly gets points for the plot, but, of course, that’s residual credit for Miss Austen’s storytelling ability. Break it down as sophisticated (the plight of privileged single women, the importance of good parenting, and romance triumphing in spite of polite society) or base (girl thinks rich dude’s a pompous jerk, until she sees his really big house and he saves her ungrateful slut sister) it’s a compelling story that you have to finish once you start. So, in reviewing this I needed to try to take the Austen out of it.

It does stands up panel to panel and writer Ian Edginton (Star Wars, Star Trek, Alien, Scarlet Traces: The Great Game) did a fair enough job of truncating the story, but it was choppy. It follows our heroine, Elizabeth, and somewhat tracks her sister Jane, but some important story beats are cut. It’s debatable whether the omissions would cause confusion to a first time reader, but what I do know is that it does strip the original story of its flow. I had to ask myself on every page if I was only enjoying it because of my familiarity of the characters and the story. Seriously, how do you review a property you know so intimately and still be fair?

But, the thing is, this cannot have been made for fans of Jane Austen. In what would have been a really cool Dramatis Personae page Mary Bennet was labeled as the fourth oldest sister, when of course it’s Kitty who holds that spot. Drab Mary is clearly the third oldest. Duh. This sin, so early in the game, left me skeptical and I just couldn’t get past it – and trust me, I know I’m not alone.

This is a version for those who just don’t want to read a whole novel, but would like to understand their girlfriend’s Darcy references, or cover their bases for pub quiz night. I bet with the help of Wikipedia and maybe Thug Notes you could totally pull off passing an AP Exam question about Pride and Prejudice from reading this graphic novel.

That being said – I’m totally passing my copy onto my husband because he’s yet to read the real novel and he might like this. So, yes, I totally believe it has an audience. But, as I said, it’s not for the typical JA fan. Because, let’s face it, we live in age with some really hot Darcys (Colin Firth, for example) and no girl is going to get that same weak in the knees feeling for this cartoon Mr. Darcy. He’s stone-faced without the benefit of good eye acting (looking toward Firth on this note as well).

But don’t assume I’m not a fan of Robert Dreas’ (Troy Trailblazer) art work. The characters all seem a little angry, but I like the style. He nails Mrs. Bennet. She was my favorite character to study, while I find I gloss over her in the novel (because she’s hella annoying). I also found the realistic nature scenes fun. Yes, fun. I don’t think they added anything, but then again I don’t turn to graphic novels to set a scene I already have firmly planted in my head. I know what Pemberly looks like because I’ve already imagined it 24 times before and it looks just like the movies.

With this realization, I figured out why I love graphic novels and love Pride and Prejudice, but couldn’t love this graphic novel version of Pride and Prejudice. I turn to comics and graphic novels to take me to a specific world found in the words and pictures. I rely on the art and the story to unfold together to show me the author and artist’s combined vision. I don’t have to do anything, but enjoy the story as it unfolds. Having already seen a better version of this story, I can’t really care about the vision unfolding. I’ve had better previous visions, thanks.

Plus, Kitty Bennet is the fourth oldest sister, dammit!

 

Comic Reviews (June 10th, 2015)

Hello all; as of this week, my comics reviews are being crossposted to ComicMix, so I suppose I should tack a paragraph introducing myself onto the start. I’m Phil Sandifer, a blogger covering various forms of pop culture and media with my own idiosyncratic long-form analysis. I’m responsible for TARDIS Eruditorum , my now-concluded history of Doctor Who, and the still-ongoing The Last War in Albion , a sprawling history of the most important magical war of the last century, the rivalry between Alan Moore and Grant Morrison.

Everything reviewed is something I willingly paid my own money for, whether wisely or foolishly, organized from my least favorite to my favorite of the week.
Weirdworld #1
Snagged because it seemed to be taking the Secret Wars premise to an interesting extreme. But while this seems a functional mash-up of Frazetta-esque pulp action and superheroes, nothing in the first issue seems to rise above the basic “nobody’s done a big Frazetta homage lately” appeal, and the whole thing ends up leaving me a bit cold. I’m sure this scratches someone’s itch, but it doesn’t scratch any itches of mine, or at least, doesn’t provide $3.99 worth of scratch.
Gotham Academy #7
Two months away from this book have, as I feared they might, not really added much to its luster for me. I still like the aesthetic a lot conceptually, but nothing has forged any attachment to the actual characters for me. It’s something I find myself hoping other people are enjoying a lot, because it’s a book I want to exist in the world, but not something whose magic is quite firing for me.
Silver Surfer #12
This feels like a book out of another era; one where Secret Wars #5 was still coming out in July, for instance, at least based on the ads. This isn’t a book that has ever been inclined towards the subtle exploration of a premise, and indeed the content of this one is telegraphed ages in advance. The big moment, the Surfer and Dawn snogging, is compelling in its own right, but one of those things where Secret Wars kind of cannibalizes its impact; one assumes the Slott/Allred Surfer is not going to be surviving into All-New All-Different Marvel, which means that Dawn Greenwood is probably a fascinating implication about to be thrown aside in a quasi-reboot. Which leaves this feeling very disposable.
Spider-Gwen #5
The alternate universe nature of this book is tough; it’s never as strong when it’s fleshing out the AU. The appeal is Gwen Stacy as Spider-Woman, and the book falters when it’s outside of her head. Which it is for a lot of this issue. I should love the sort of WicDiv “superpowered pop star punchdown” feel of this, and I do, but there’s too much of familiar Marvel for it to stand on its own feet and too much difference from the usual concepts of “Matt Murdock” and “Felicia Hardy” for their associations to quite carry it through, which is leaving the central appeal of this book lacking for me.
Nameless #4
I admit to some severe disappointment with this. I’d very much hoped that Morrison’s engagement with the vibrant and increasingly culturally influential nihilist philosophies of people like Thomas Ligotti would push him to new things. Instead we just sort of have Final Crisis and The Filth mashed up and played back at the wrong speed.
Ultimate End #2
As a part of Secret Wars, this is developing an interesting enough mystery about Manhattan and what happened to the 616 and Ultimate universes. As a comic designed to serve as a satisfying end to the fifteen year project that was the Ultimate Universe, the fact that there are so many 616 characters running around feels to me like it’s getting in the way. The scene of 616-Spidey visiting Ultimate Aunt May and Gwen Stacy, in particular, felt like bizarrely squandered potential.
Saga #29
I admit, there are aspects of this book’s… extremity that I do not entirely grasp the point of. Autofelatio cave monster is a prime example. This all moved along nicely, and I think there were some good plot beats, but I have to admit, this issue did nothing for my concern that the book has vanished up its own ass.
1602: Witch Hunter Angela #1
I appreciate the degree to which this is following up from the Angela; Asgard’s Assassin series in terms of plot, feeling like it’s nicely setting up an actual arc that’s going to continue before and after Secret Wars. And Angela killing King James (who is secretly Wolverine) is basically pure brilliance.
Captain America and the Mighty Avengers #9
I have little doubt my affection for these Last Days stories is going to drop precipitously as they all end up hitting the same basic conceptual beats, but I’m glad Ewing got the first crack at a finale in this vein, because he doesn’t bother holding anything back, instead just banging the “heroes fighting to the end because that’s what heroes do” drum as unambiguously and as optimistically as it can be banged.
Injection #2
Warren Ellis weirdness. It features Ellis’s occasionally irksome tick of just throwing in a massive multi-page fight scene that establishes little beyond “this dude is an an ultra badass,” but while these scenes are less interesting than most of what Ellis does, Ellis still does them better than almost anyone else. And the remainder of this book is good fun.
Crossed +100 #5
This was just fantastic. I love the man for whom the Crossed outbreak was just business as normal, especially done as a sort of Rorschach parody. I love the invocation of the original title of The Stars My Destination. One more issue of this, and the sense of dread and terror is fantastic. Sci-fi zombies with all the zombie horror in the background. It’s brilliant; so wonderful to have Moore writing two titles right now, even if it’s only going to be true for another month.

Originally published on PhilipSandifer.com.

REVIEW: Cleopatra in Space: The Thief and the Sword

Cleopatra in Space: The Thief and the Sword
By Mike Maihack
191 pages, Scholastic Graphix, $12.99

The Thief and the SwordWhen Scholastic brought Mike Maihack’s webcomic Cleopatra in Space to print, it seemed like a perfect fit for their line. Unfortunately, the protagonist had as much to do with the real life Cleopatra as does the Queen of England. Target Practice was an Egyptian-flavored space opera with an overly familiar feel to it, much like the overhyped Amulet series from Graphix.

We now have the second volume and it does little fresh or different. In fact, it does less than volume one, slowing things down. Considering the annual release pattern, young readers deserve stories with beginnings, middles, and ends. Here, we start in the middle and reach page 191 without too much happening, leaving us with a cliffhanger that will frustrate the audience and make parents feel as if they wasted their money.

Maihack clearly studied comics when the decompressed storytelling of the late 1990s and 2000s were all the rage. At the time, graphic novel collections were increasingly valuable to the bottom line and six issue collections were the sweet spot. That meant pacing went way down and things dragged out. Here, Maihack spends lots of time watching people run, jump, fight, and so on without much of consequence happening. Similarly, he never deepens the characters so they remain flat, two-dimensional types rather than complex beings.

Maihack clearly knows how to tell a story and his character designs are good. His color palette is interesting and he brings some nice emotion to his story but that’s as far as it goes and for the price, more is expected. Heck, I’ll say, it’s demanded.

Box Office Democracy: “Spy”

spy-poster-2015-hd-wallpaper-8943850

I wonder how many excellent movies we’ve been cheated out of by Melissa McCarthy’s commitment to Mike & Molly. I understand the appeal of a regular paycheck and the success of the show has led to McCarty being the highest paid actress in Hollywood but Spy is such a good movie and couldn’t she be doing two or three of these per year instead of one and a season of bad television? Spy is the funniest movie I’ve seen in years and it isn’t close. I laughed so often and so hard I’m sure that I laughed over important dialogue and even other jokes. It’s the kind of movie that can shift the paradigm of movie comedy in the way the Judd Apatow movies of the early 2000s did and it can even be the movie you throw in your idiot friend’s face when he starts going on about how women just aren’t funny.

It is easy to praise McCarthy’s work in Spy. She’s effortlessly funny, she hits her dramatic moments, and she has an amazing physicality. I think she’s literally perfect for this role and I’m still worried I’m underselling her here. I’m also impressed at how competent they were willing to let her character be, it’s very easy to get cheap laughs out of someone being bad at their job but Susan Cooper is a good spy because she’s smart and because she’s trained very hard. A weaker movie would have been a string of pratfalls and idiot bungling. This movie doles out the bungling much more sparingly and is much better for it.

The buzz I had heard going in to this film was that Jason Statham was the breakout comic performance of the film and I didn’t think that was possible. I knew Jason Statham was funny, I had seen his work with Guy Ritchie, I has enjoyed his work in the Crank films, I thought he couldn’t surprise me in this way and I was 100% wrong. Jason Statham is funny for pretty much every second he’s on screen. I don’t think he has more than a couple lines that aren’t punchlines. His delivery is impeccable. I can’t decide if I think this is just incredible direction from Paul Feig, or if working with McCarthy brings out the best in people, or maybe we’ve all been deprived of years of work from the most unlikely comic star since it turned out Channing Tatum could steal 21 Jump Street from Jonah Hill.

I could write a gushing paragraph about every actor in Spy, the cast is so consistently amazing, but I don’t really have the space or inclination so let’s cover a bunch of people right here. Rose Byrne is terrific, between this and Bridesmaids I would be quite content to have her, McCarthy, and Feig just do movies together forever. She doesn’t have the most original comedic voice in the world but she does what she does so well. I was not familiar with Miranda Hart’s work in the UK so it’s an awful lot like a fully mature talent just sprung up at me from the ether. She’s a scene-stealer and, this might not seem remarkable, but a very big out-of-the-ordinary character that I’m never unhappy to see on screen. Jude Law looks great in a suit and is very handsome and that’s all this movie asks of him. Bobby Cannavale should really work more because I’ve never not liked him in something. I was very sure Morena Baccarin was going to be an important part of this movie when she was introduced and was very sad when she was used only sparingly.

There were a few things I thought worked less well. They go to the “You look like” joke construction a few times too often. It seems to be a McCarthy staple at this point and in a vacuum they’re all funny but at the end of a two-hour movie they aren’t hitting as hard. Peter Serafinowicz plays an aggressively flirty Italian agent that I thought was deserving of maybe 20% of the screen time he was allotted and I ended up cringing through most of his work. There are a couple jokes that use slurs for seemingly no reason other than to shock and that’s not a style of comedy I prefer. I thought a moment at the end where Cooper and Rayna Boyanov make nice was unearned and is just trading on the fact that we know the two actresses have a history. These are very small marks on an otherwise fantastic movie and nothing is ever going to connect with all of their jokes.

Paul Feig is on quite a roll with his third consecutive very funny McCarthy-led hit. In a more cynical time I would wonder if one or the other of this pairing is leaning too hard on the other, if perhaps the success of one is a smokescreen created by the supreme talent of the other but that’s just not how I want to think about things anymore. This collaboration is something special and we ought to cherish it before one of the nefarious forces in Hollywood that destroys all good things comes for this one. I thought I couldn’t be more excited for Feig and McCarthy’s Ghostbusters remake but it appears I was wrong. Hell, Spy was so good you might even be able to get me to see The Peanuts Movie, God help us all.

REVIEW: The Baby-Sitter’s Club: Kristy’s Great Idea

The Baby-Sitter’s Club: Kristy’s Great Idea
By Raina Telgemeier
180 page, Scholastic Graphix, $10.99

kristys-great-idea-e1433702735165-6516692With the well-deserved success of Raina Telgemeier’s original graphic novels, it makes perfect sense for Scholastic to re-release her earlier efforts, adaptations of Ann M. Martin’s Baby-Sitters Club novels. Wisely, they freshened the 2006 material with added color from Braden Lamb and, like a fresh coat of paint, it feels brand new.

Martin launched her bestselling line of Young Adult novels in 1986, totaling 131 standard novels, an additional 15 Super Specials, plus assorted Mysteries, Super Mysteries, Special Edition Readers’ Requests and so on. The last original fiction was actually a prequel to this story, released in 2010.

In 2006, Scholastic hired Telgemeier to adapt the novels in the hopes of a new secondary line of works for readers. After four, sales didn’t meet expectations and they ended. But now they are back with volume one out now and the second due in July.

Telgemeier does a nice job visualizing the four main characters – Kristy, Mary Anne, Claudia, and Stacey. Her story moves breezily along, never dwelling too long on a scene or a baby-sitting experience. Some things get telegraphed such as newcomer Stacey’s secret but in keeping with Martin’s deft handling of teen issues, it plays out well.

It’s interesting to see how Telgemeier has grown as an artist in the last decade. Her style is easily recognizable but feels simpler here. Lamb’s color is a lovely layer to the storytelling and complements the artwork nicely.

The novels and this quartet of titles is clearly for a specific female audience but put it in their hands, and they will love it, coming back for more.

Box Office Democracy: San Andreas

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I’ve been dreading San Andreas since the first trailer I saw of it. I don’t like movies where cities get destroyed especially if they’re cities I happen to live in, I think 9/11 ruined that for me forever. I do, however, have a deep, profound, love for Dawyne “The Rock” Johnson going back to the late 90s, long before any buildings fell down around me. San Andreas is a battle between a genre that’s felt stale for as long as I’ve been aware of it, one that offends me personally, and a man who is possibly the greatest American action star in history. Unfortunately, not even The Rock can carry this movie and judging from the size of his arms these days that’s probably the only thing he can’t carry.

San Andreas is the same as Volcano, which is the same as The Day After Tomorrow, which is the same as 2012. It hits all of the same beats and has basically all the same characters. The Rock plays the action hero, in this case a LAFD rescue chopper pilot his family is collapsing around him but nothing that can’t be patched up by saving them from a cataclysmic once-in-a-lifetime disaster. Paul Giamatti’s considerable talent is wasted as the scientist who tries to warn people but is ultimately useless because no warnings he gives could possibly be useful and all of the science is nonsesne anyway. There’s the smug rich guy (played by Ioan Gruffudd) who treats everyone like garbage as soon as things start going wrong and gets his comeuppance in a seemingly random twist of fate. There’s the attractive young woman, in this case Alexandra Daddario playing Johnson’s alarmingly white daughter, who is constantly in peril while wearing impractical clothing. I suppose the twist on the formula is that Daddario’s character is stunningly competent and frequently saves the men around her as opposed to the other way around but I’m not sure it counts for anything when none of these characters have any sort of depth or even narrative arcs. Every character just sort of runs towards or away from things as needed and the movie doesn’t end with any resolution just by the characters all being in the same place.

Johnson tries his best to save this movie and he very nearly pulls it off. He has the same effortless physicality he brings to all his movies; impossible things look more possible when he does them. He gets all the best stunts, approximately 90% of the emotional content of the movie, and he gets to perfectly pilot three different vehicles through every manner of hell imaginable. Everything that works in the movie works because of him but that doesn’t save it from being a bland, predictable film with a script that feels two levels above a Syfy original movie.

I suppose it’s the spectacle of San Andreas that’s supposed to make me fall in love with it but it doesn’t do it for me. The grandness of the destruction is counterbalanced frequently by just how blatantly the film ignores how things would actually happen. Not that I expect this to be some kind of slavishly accurate depiction of a big earthquake but I feel like with all the tsunamis that have caused such devastation in recent years that I’ve been told so many times how they work to just completely ignore that. There are also some particularly pandering shots of things like the American flag being flown in the rubble of the Golden Gate Bridge and fences full of fliers looking for missing persons that are designed to evoke real world tragedies in a way that feels less authentic than exploitative. In a movie with more genuine heart I might give it a pass but everything feels just a bit too slick and phony in San Andreas.

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